Here are some books I’ve enjoyed more than others in the last 14 months or so. I’ve included some notable quotes but not all are equally representative of the book contents.

Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker

“What is progress? You might think that the question is so subjective and culturally relative as to be forever unanswerable. In fact, it’s one of the easier questions to answer. Most people agree that life is better than death. Health is better than sickness. Sustenance is better than hunger. Abundance is better than poverty. Peace is better than war. Safety is better than danger. Freedom is better than tyranny. Equal rights are better than bigotry and discrimination. Literacy is better than illiteracy. Knowledge is better than ignorance. Intelligence is better than dull-wittedness. Happiness is better than misery. Opportunities to enjoy family, friends, culture, and nature are better than drudgery and monotony. All these things can be measured. If they have increased over time, that is progress.”

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Harari

“Homo sapiens is just not built for satisfaction. Human happiness depends less on objective condition and more on our own expectations. Expectations, however, tend to adapt to conditions, including to the condition of other people. When things improve, expectations balloon, and consequently even dramatic improvement in conditions might leave us as dissatisfied as before.”

Culture Code by Daniel Coyle

“Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they’ll find a way to screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a good team, and they’ll find a way to make it better. The goal needs to be to get the team right, get them moving in the right direction, and get them to see where they are making mistakes and where they are succeeding.”

Lessons from Spotify. Atypically for tech, Spotify’s marginal cost is not zero as it pays royalties. Since it’s hard to negotiate better rates with the music industry, Spotify will either need to tightly control operational costs or cut out the labels altogether – not a likely option. (Stratechery)

There are a lot of different approaches to measure happiness levels in a given country and, of course, they are all imperfect. These two recent studies seem interesting though: According to the latest Gallup, these are the happiest countries:

To respond to this question Funders and Founders designed an infographic that is a reasonable starting place for an online research:

In reality, of course, everything is much more complicated. For instance, the picture mixes EB petitions that allow one to become a permanent resident right away with temporary visas. E-2 visa does not work for Russia, thank the politicians. Getting an H1B entails a serious risk because of the caps, especially if you do not already have a degree from a top American university. The majority of visas do not allow a spouse to work. There are lots of other details as well, the immigration law is probably #1 thing that I dislike about the US. But overall it is a good summary of the situation. There is also a bill for Startup Visa, but it does not seem to be become a reality any time soon.

I would like to devote this post to Japanese temple, imperial palaces and just gardens. I believe, you can enjoy their beauty and sophistication regardless of your attitude towards monarchs, religion or concept of God in general.

A couple of words about religion. Buddhism and Shinto prevail in Japan, so these are the ones that I’m going to cover here. However, in general Japanese tend to associate themselves with few religions at the same time. Moreover, only 20% of population actually believes in any God.

Distinctive features of Japan are well-thought design and attention to details. Compared to Russia the difference is easily visible: economy instead of wide scope, neatness instead of coarseness.This post is going to be a mixture of various interesting and maybe funny things that didn’t match any particular topic of other posts. So, what caught my inquisitive sight?

Take elevator, for instance. Notice additional buttons for children and disabled.

Well, you need to be the Captain Obvious to state that Japan has a very original and delicious cuisine. Variety of fish and seafood, unusual soups, seaweed, sashimi and of course sushi. Everything is fresh and delicious. You will like it if you’re open-minded in the first place.

Fortunately, we had an opportunity to try it all: the authentic cuisine in the expensive traditional restaurants, cheap fast-food-like cafes and a regular bento (Japanese lunch box) in the shinkansen (Japanese high-speed train). And all were good.